Confessional
by Yun Min
Summary: After she almost dies at Epps' hands, Zack visits Cam in the hospital. He's still seeking an explanation for what drove him to do such a brash, impulsive thing, even if it did save her life.


**Confessional**

_After she almost dies at Epps' hands, Zack visits Cam in the hospital. He's still seeking an explanation for what drove him to do such a brash, impulsive thing, even if it did save her life._

Zack stands outside Cam's hospital door. She's sleeping now; the antidote seeping its way into her cells. She'll be back on her feet in a few hours, a feat for a woman who only a few scant hours ago was at death's door.

Zack spends his days immersed in death, ever since they'd all solved that first murder case, but it's never felt quite like this. It's not the first time someone he knows has been threatened, had their life on the line in pursuit of duty and justice, but it is the first time he's been so physically close to it. And he's never felt so helpless.

"You can go in," a nurse says as she walks past. "She's stable."

Zack means to ask how she knows he's here for Cam, but she's already wandered off. Belatedly, he realises he's standing outside her door, wearing his Jeffersonian ID fastened to the front of his jacket. He reaches up, unclips the badge and puts it away in his pocket. The glass doors to Cam's hospital room slide open seamlessly. There's a chair set at an angel across from Cam's bed. Zack knows Booth was here earlier. He and Cam have been friends for years; it is understandable that he would be worried.

Zack settles into it. In truth, doesn't know why he's here. Cam's recovery will not hasten with his presence, and he would be better served by returning to his home and sleeping.

Cam's eyes stir, a minute movement Zack takes no notice of. It's not until he hears her voice, low and rasping, utter "Zack?" that he realises she's awake. Moving his chair closer to the bed, he opens his mouth to say something. But he realises he has no idea what he wants to say, and closes it again.

"What are you doing here?" Cam asks. "Seeley said you'd been blown up."

It takes Zack a moment to remember that Seeley is Agent Booth's first name. And then he's just as surprised that Booth even mentioned it.

"Yes." Zack doubts Cam will remember this conversation but he sees no point in sugar coating. "It's not an experience I wish to repeat."

"Next time," Cam says. Her words are slow. She's still attached to breathing apparatus. "Leave Seeley to do that part. That's what he's paid for. We pay you to be brilliant."

A flush of pale pink spreads over Zack's face. He expects that it's the drugs coursing through Dr. Saroyan's system that is causing her to say such things; though she has always been more free with her praise than Dr. Brennan is.

"It's not like you to be impulsive." Zack has to bend low to catch Cam's words, which are muttered over several breaths.

"You were dying," Zack says, matter-of-fact. It's the only explanation he has for his rash behaviour, and he hopes that it is a satisfactory one.

Which he doubts, somehow, because it doesn't really satisfy him. A life for a life is never a fair exchange, and though everything ended alright, he can calculate the number of ways it could have finished otherwise. If Epps had only set the bomb more efficiently, if the structure of the room had channelled the blast in a different way – he could have died in that explosion, and with him Cam's hope of salvation would have been extinguished. In no way was it a rational decision.

"And you saved me," Cam says. Zack wants to say no; he almost killed her. It was Booth who saved her life. It is always Booth who saves them. That skill is not Zack's. But he understands that it is uncouth to argue with a woman in a hospital bed, and refrains.

So instead he simply answers: "Yes." If that is what Cam chooses to believe, he can go along with it.

"Thank you," she says, stronger than any of her previous words. One of her hands slides out from underneath the stark white sheets. Zack clasps it. It's a simple human gesture of comfort, and if Cam wants that from him, the least he can do is provide it.

She turns her head, dark hair tousled on the pillow. Her eyes slide closed again, and Zack is not surprised. His own are not far off from closing of their own accord, and given the day he's had, he'd be justified falling asleep here.

He waits a few moments. Cam's eyes do not reopen, so he tries to pull his fingers apart from hers. In response, she tightens her grip. Zack finds he cannot separate her hand from his unless he physically untangles them from one another.

That seems unnecessary, and the hospital chair is not uncomfortable.

He sinks back into it. Cam wishes him to stay, even if it is a subconscious desire.

He did save her life today, after all.


End file.
